


The House That Jack Didn't Choose

by Kryptaria



Category: Doctor Who, Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling, Torchwood
Genre: Gen, Jack Harkness doesn't like labels
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-31
Updated: 2018-05-31
Packaged: 2019-05-16 13:08:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 794
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14811977
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kryptaria/pseuds/Kryptaria
Summary: Minerva has seen the Sorting Hat handle all sorts of students. Then Jack Harkness shows up.





	The House That Jack Didn't Choose

**Author's Note:**

> I just dug this out of my Tumblr archive. Enjoy!
> 
> ~~~

“And Stuart Zang,” Professor Minerva McGonagall called, reading the name at the very bottom of the scroll. A young boy scurried up the dais, sat down, and put on the Sorting Hat. Despite the boy having seen the sorting of thirty-eight other candidates, his pulse was racing, visible at his throat. Not Gryffindor, she suspected. There was a clever light to his eyes that made her suspect…

“Ravenclaw!” the Sorting Hat declared.

Hiding her smile at being correct again, she went to pick up the hat, only to hear Head Girl Kay Gulley speak up: “Excuse me, Professor. You’ve forgotten someone.”

Surprised, Minerva turned, fingers unrolling the scroll to see if she’d actually managed to miss one of her students. “I’m certain —”

“That’s all right, Professor,” said the unfamiliar young man, in his early teens, who rose from the foot of the Gryffindor table. An American? He was an American — sitting with her own house! And she didn’t recognise him! He was certainly too old to be a new student — quite possibly older than he looked. Blue eyes, soft dark hair… a smile that quite stole her breath when he turned its full force on her and said, “Sorry I wasn’t standing with the others. I was just getting to know Glinda and Timothy here.”

Ignoring the way Glinda and Timothy were giggling, Minerva shored up her mental defences against beguilement charms, but the young man didn’t seem to be using magic at all. His wand wasn’t even in his hand; it was tucked into his belt rather like a rapier. His robes were open, shirt unbuttoned at the throat, and he wore an odd bracelet of thick brown leather around his left wrist. She couldn’t bring herself to scold him for the uniform violations.

“And you are?” she managed to ask, though not as sharply as she tried.

His smile turned up a notch. Surely he was too old to be a First Year? Late teens, not early as she'd first assumed. He stopped walking just a foot away from her and said, “Sorry, Professor. I got a little distracted.”

Flustered, Minerva fumbled the scroll, looking for any unchecked name on her list. “You’re no First Year —”

“Transfer student.” He winked at her — actually winked! — before he turned his attention to the Sorting Hat. “Aren’t you a clever thing?” he asked, sweeping the Hat off the stool. He set the hat on his head, tilted at a rakish angle, and settled on the stool, looking up at the brim.

 _He has to be here_ , Minerva thought, concentrating fiercely on the list of student names. The Great Hall had gone as silent as a tomb, without even the usual coughing, sneezing, and minor explosions to interrupt the peace.

“Right, right,” the Sorting Hat was mumbling. “Difficult one, very difficult. Ambitious as a Slytherin, brave as a Gryffindor, clever as a Ravenclaw… Oh, my poor, dear boy, you’re a Hufflepuff at heart, aren’t you? Giving all you have —”

“You know,” the young man said, reaching up to remove the Sorting Hat. “All these Houses are fun and all, but I hate that sort of separation. Can you just check all the boxes?”

“All — But —  _All_  —”

“Thanks, pal,” the young man interrupted, silencing the Sorting Hat’s sputtering with a wink. He turned, set the hat on the stool, and gave a little bow to the head table, where Dumbledore and the others were watching in various states of bemusement.

Well, this would not do! Minerva wasn’t about to let some American teenager sweep into her school and choose to join all the houses at once. Hogwarts had traditions. Rules. A legacy of the four founders…

A legacy that she forgot entirely when he walked right back over to her. He took hold of her right hand, and the scroll spun back up into a neat roll. “Sorry to cause trouble,” he said as he gave another little bow, raising her hand to drop a neat kiss on her fingers. “I’ll see you soon, Professor.”

Minerva gaped at him. She knew she was blushing, but she couldn’t remember a single spell to hide it. She just watched helplessly as the young man let go of her to survey the room with his charming grin firmly in place. Then he drew his wand and pointed at each table in turn, chanting, “Eenie meeny miney moe…”

The unfamiliar spell should’ve had Minerva and the other teachers up in arms, but no one moved. The young man ended his spell with his finger pointing at the Ravenclaw table. He sauntered over, boots ringing loudly on the stone floor, and settled right in the middle, rather than at the end with the other First Years.

“Hi, guys. I’m Jack. Jack Harkness.”


End file.
